To meet the demand for oil and gas resources in the oil and gas industry, companies often invest significant amounts of time and money in searching for and extracting oil, natural gas, and other subterranean resources from the earth. Particularly, once a desired resource is discovered below the surface of the earth, drilling and production systems are often employed to access and extract the resource. These systems may be located onshore or offshore depending on the location of a desired resource. Further, such systems generally include a flow equipment completion system that includes production trees, blowout preventers, accumulator systems, many types of control systems, wellhead assemblies through which the resource may be extracted, in addition to other types of flow equipment. These flow completion systems may include a wide variety of components, such as various piping, tubing, casings, hangers, valves, fluid conduits, and the like, that control drilling and/or extraction operations.
As such, the oil and gas industry depends highly upon the use of pipes, tubulars, and other similar types of conduits for reliability, economic practicality, and safety. These conduits come in all types of sizes and dimensions, such as depending on the intended use and environment, and may be coupled to each other using several different techniques. Larger conduits are more commonly used to transport drilling fluids for drilling purposes or oil and gas for production purposes, whereas smaller conduits are more commonly used for pressure control type purposes, such as by supplying pressurized hydraulic fluid for various functions, valves, or tools. To connect these conduits with each other, the conduits may be threaded into engagement with each other, may be bolted to each other, such as through flanges, and/or may be permanently connected to each other by welding the conduits to each other.
Oilfield equipment and tubulars are already exposed to extreme conditions, and with the increased development in the petroleum industry, these conditions are only pushing the fluid handling capabilities of the equipment and tubulars more and more. For example, wells are now deeper with higher pressures, many are subsea in cold and higher pressure environments and/or may be in highly corrosive areas with minimal accessibility, may be contained within an earthquake fault zone, and/or may have other harsh conditions. These conditions and circumstances only push the performance requirements for the equipment and tubulars higher and higher. Accordingly, these oil and gas tubulars are scientifically evaluated using various tests to simulate service conditions, including testing for axial load (tension or compression), pressure (internal pressure or external pressure), temperature, and bending loads, for determining carrying capacity and limits of the tubulars in accordance with relevant U.S. and international standards and R & D requirements. However, these tests are designed and specific to the nature and configuration of the tubulars and tubular connections themselves, and any new development with respect to the tubulars and tubular connections may require reconsideration on how the scientific evaluations and tests are conducted. As such, it remains a priority to not only continue to develop tubulars and tubular connections, but also the testing methods with respect to the tubulars and tubular connections.